- Free Year 0 or before (Before Kalak Dies/Original Boxed Set)
- Free Year 1 After Kalak Dies (4e reset)
- Free Year 11 (After Pentad events/Revised Boxed Set)
- Free Year 311 (Paizo 3rd Edition Timeline)
- Something Else (tell us in the comments)
0 voters
1 Like
Year of Priest’s Defiance (FY0) all the way. I think it helps the players experience the changes to the world and bring them along with it.
FYI We’ve just about reached FY4 and I’m hoping to run DSE1 Dragon’s Crown when we next play in January. So far my players are having a blast!
3 Likes
FY0 with the characters in the driver’s seat. If something major happens, the PCs are not mere spectators but active participants.
3 Likes
I agree with Redking. I am currently running my players through a series of adventures, that will lead to a final confrontation with Kalak.
1 Like
The Mindmage Ascendancy Adventure Path begins forty-nine years after the death of King Kalak of Tyr, during the 190th King’s Age, in the Year of the King’s Slumber. All the heroes of Tyr are dead, except Sadira, the queen of Tyr. Tyr is still a free city. Sadira cannot grant templars spells. Tyrian Templars are still a social class of sorts but all character classes have found a niche in the various bureaus.
4 Likes
I have yet to run a game, but have a novella idea and a campaign idea, both perpetually on the back burner.
The story is set in an alternate timeline where the attack against Kalak failed, but crippled him and prevented him from becoming a full dragon in one big shot.
The campaign is either set in that alternate timeline or in the regular timeline before that attempt.
Part of what makes Dark Sun interesting to me is the idea that there is this millenia-old calcified order to things, and characters are trying to scrape out an existence under all that repression, and it’s not clear you can ever eliminate it.
Everything that happens from Kalak’s defeat onward suggests the world is a lot more dynamic than that, and getting rid of the baddies is less improbable.
6 Likes
I’m probably the wrong person to ask, as I haven’t run a game in a while.
But I like the idea of running a game after everything has been torn up (FY11). It means we can shift the focus onto something besides the Sorcerer Monarchs.
5 Likes
I actually like Kalak as a character quite a bit. I don’t mind seeing him die, but I think that it’s a shame for it to happen right at the start of the setting rather than having some chance to really get to know him and see how he rules Tyr and interacts with the setting more broadly.
I think the thing that is most refreshing about Kalak is that he doesn’t pretend to be anything more than he is. While all the other SKs pretend to be gods, Kalak, is just like. I’m an immortal sorcerer and ruler of this city, I have the power, submit. That and the fact that he looks like a nasty old man.
7 Likes
Yes.
My most vivid memory of the character is right at the beginning of the Prism Pentad where he’s just kind of hauling himself around the Ziggurat as its being built and casually blasts some worker or slave’s mind to bits. It’s been decades since I read it, so I might be misremembering something. But the casually ruthless use of power and the pretty-spry-for-and-ancient-toad-of-a-man quality of him sort of stuck in my mind.
Really, the first book of the Prism Pentad really stuck in my mind as these evocative sketches of the setting and situation, with interesting details thrown in here and there for flavor. But once the really epic stuff gets under way, the dark lens and world-shaping magic, it just didn’t grab me as much.
Weirdly did like Rise and Fall of a Dragon King though. Not sure why. Maybe felt like by that point in Lynn Abbey’s story arc, anything epic seemed more earned.
4 Likes
Typically shortly before or after Kalak and Rikus play catch.
1 Like
Any really, but usually in the past; I’m thinking of a 4e game, using character-trees, that extend from the Green-Ages to the current-times. For Fourth-Edition, I only have three-books, Players Guide, DMGs and the Dark Sun book, so, no monsters, save for whats in the DS book, so, I guess the players will be the monsters!
Edit: Also, one of the best games of Dark Sun I played wasn’t in Dark Sun; I played a Dark Sun Mul-Gladiator in the Dragonlance world, so I’m always thinking of crossovers.
1 Like
4th edition has the Dark Sun Creature Catalog you can get it online.
1 Like
Thank you, but I kinda don’t want it. I’d rather focus on the players and NPCs rather than traditional D&D.
1 Like
The Mindmage Ascendancy Adventure Path. It sounds like a very interesting time period and has a prevocative title. Does anyone know more about it or where I can get this adventure path? Is it something I can buy or find on the net? Thanks for sharing
2 Likes
Yes , I wrote it and run scenario versions of the chapters at various cons. But its is unfortunately not for sale at this time, perhaps in the future when the IP restrictions are lifted.
3 Likes
Oh okay, I wasn’t sure. I was under the impression this might be on DMs Guild or something. It sounds really interesting. I think Dark Sun needs an Adventure Path updated for modern players. It is my favorite world so I’m always looking for inspiration from other like minded gamers. Thanks for the response.
1 Like
I run the original 5 adventures and also take those as canon. I’ll probably run another game in dark sun pretty soon and will follow from there.
2 Likes